


The Shape in Stars

by Recipe



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Claudeleth Week (Fire Emblem), F/M, Fluff, Not Beta Read, Stars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:49:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25395652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Recipe/pseuds/Recipe
Summary: Byleth knows how to track the stars across the sky like she knows how to track quarry through the forest floor. She knows how to read their positions like she knows how to read sign posts at an intersection.What she can’t do, however, is fit stories and shapes into those twinkling specks in the sky, ascribing their formation to the workings of gods and goddesses. She doesn’t understand why people describe them with flowery words likedancingandenigmatic.(Byleth judges people who romanticize stars, but turns out Claude is one of those people. A fluffy ode to #ClaudelethWeek2020, Day 1 Prompt: Stars/Comfort)
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 18
Kudos: 113
Collections: Claudeleth Week 2020





	The Shape in Stars

**Author's Note:**

> I did not plan on participating in Claudeleth Week.
> 
> Until a few hours ago when this happened. Just a quick and easy piece - don't squint too close!

Byleth knows stars. After all, she’s a mercenary. She’s spent more of her evenings camping in a thin bedroll beneath an open sky than she has tucked away in narrow pallets in rented rooms, staring at the ceiling water stains that seem to be a trademark of all inns.

Byleth knows how to track the stars across the sky like she knows how to track quarry through the forest floor. She knows how to read their positions like she knows how to read sign posts at an intersection. She finds them comforting in their familiarity and their consistency. She appreciates them for their seasonal routine. 

What she _can’t_ do, however, is fit stories and shapes into those twinkling specks in the sky, ascribing their formation to the workings of gods and goddesses. She doesn’t understand why people describe them with flowery words like _dancing_ and _enigmatic_.

So when _Claude_ \- someone Byleth would describe as _skeptical_ and _pragmatic_ \- calls them _beautiful_ and _the muse for dreams_ , Byleth frowns.

“Do you mean that literally?” Byleth asks. “Since people only sleep at night, when the stars are out.” She pauses, throwing a speculative look at Claude, who - from what she’s gathered - never seems to sleep at night and instead steals naps throughout the day. “Or, rather - _most_ people.”

He pulls his gaze from the sky, meeting her with surprise. “Way to take the romance out of it, Teach,” he says. “Can’t a guy wax poetry about stars without getting called out on it?”

“What poetry is there to wax about _stars?_ ” Byleth blurts.

“You’re kidding,” Claude says with raised eyebrows. “You can’t think of a _single_ poetic thing about the lights that illuminate the _heavens_ , shining only when the world is slumbering?”

Byleth returns the raised eyebrows. “I’m not usually one to write poetry,” she points out.

“ _Usually_ ,” Claude emphasizes. “But not even the _stars_ can compel you?”

“I did write a couplet once,” Byleth admits. “It was the last time that my father tried to encourage me to appreciate the arts.”

She’d been young then, a tiny slip of a girl that would silently follow mercenaries around her father’s camp until they would finally agree to duel her. She’d lost all those bouts - after all, she was a child and they were trained fighters twice her size - but she enjoyed it all anyway, because it had been _her_ idea of playtime. But one day, her father had somehow been convinced that she should play with words instead of swords for a turn, and he placed a piece of parchment and a quill in front of her and forced her into writing.

“Really?” Claude lights up, intrigued. “You don’t happen to _remember_ that poem, by any chance?”

She does remember the poem. It went like this:

_Even Jeralt the bold, the brave, the Blade Breaker_

_Must take care of his step or he’ll need a caretaker._

She’d turned it in alongside her best glower, but it had only served to make Jeralt laugh. “All right, kiddo,” he’d said. “You win this one. Go and play with your swords.”

But she knows better than to share this knowledge with Claude, who would _certainly_ find a way to tease her with it. “It was a long time ago,” she says instead, waving his question away.

Claude buys into her half-truth, though he hasn’t let go of her disinclination towards poetry. “I can’t believe you don’t like _stars_ ,” he states, dumbfounded.

“I like stars,” Byleth corrects, almost defensively.

“ _Do_ you,” Claude says - and _there’s_ that skepticism that she associates with him. “What do you like about them?”

“I like that they tell me which way is north.”

Claude laughs, and Byleth realizes it’s the same laugh as Jeralt’s all those years back. “You like them for their usefulness,” he concludes. “I suppose I can relate to _that_.”

Byleth nods. It’s a concise way of putting it. “I like stars the same way you like me,” she says, trying her hand at pithy.

Claude chuckles again, but this one’s darker, as if it has a promise that Byleth can’t decipher sitting on its edge. “Not _exactly_ like that.”

“Of course it is,” Byleth says. “You like me for my usefulness.”

“Among other things,” Claude says cryptically, and Byleth decides that she must reconsider her belief that Claude is at all _pragmatic_.

But, she’ll bite. “What other things?” Byleth prompts.

Claude’s innocent facade is betrayed by a slowly burgeoning smirk. “Well,” he says, “what other things do you like about _stars?_ ”

Byleth glares, unamused. “I certainly appreciate that they’re not _evasive_.”

“Stars - not evasive, just elusive,” Claude says as he mimes ticking off an item on a checklist, ignoring her not-so-veiled slight against his person. “What else?”

“I like how they follow _order_ and _procedure_ ,” Byleth stresses.

“Regular little soldiers, they are,” Claude agrees mildly. “What else?”

 _What else?_ What else _is_ there? They’re only _stars_ , after all. 

“That’s it,” Byleth states.

“That’s it?” Claude repeats. “You don’t think they’re beautiful? You don’t think they’re the muse for dreams?”

Byleth sighs, exasperated. How often does she need to reiterate this? It’s not _so_ novel of a concept. In fact, she’s almost disappointed that he _doesn’t_ understand. “No, I don’t,” she says. “They’re just stars.”

Claude winks conspiratorially. “See,” he says, as if he’s just proven a great point. “I _don’t_ exactly like you the way that you like stars.”

She rolls her eyes. “Why? Because I don’t think that stars are beautiful and dreamy?” she says dryly.

But then, against all odds - Claude beams and says, “I knew you’d understand.” And Byleth’s pulse thrums erratically at the unexpected response - because what does _that_ mean? He _has_ to be teasing her again, the little shit - because otherwise, is he saying that he thinks she is - ?

“You - ” Byleth starts, but she’s suddenly silenced because he’s brushing her hair behind her ear and _placing a chaste kiss on the corner of her lips_ and she _swears_ that if this is him teasing her - then he’s gone way past the line, this time -

Because Claude knows that he’s an attractive man with charming smiles, but he _can’t_ know that Byleth has found herself attracted to that man and charmed by his smiles. Because the two of them are the drivers of the Alliance resistance in this war effort, and their relationship is _platonic_ and _easy_ . He tells her about his ambitions and about his recent escapades antagonizing Lysithea or Lorenz or Hilda. She tells him her worries and that he needs to give poor Lorenz a _break_ for once. He does _not_ tell her that he thinks she’s beautiful and that she’s a muse for dreams. She does _not_ tell him that her mind sometimes - traitorously - conjures his image as her fingers wind their way beneath the sheets at night.

They train together. They inspect battle maps together. Occasionally, they take meals together. He teases her, and she bites back some dry remark that puts him back into his place, and he laughs. Sometimes, his laughter even touches his eyes.

And if Byleth _does_ secretly harbor a crush on her co-leader, then so what? It’s a passing fancy. It’s entirely manageable, because Byleth is not romantic. The Ashen Demon does not _do_ romantic.

They do not _flirt_. They do not place tantalizing kisses on the corner of the other’s mouth.

“Claude - ” Byleth tries to start again, and she’s horrified to find that her throat has gone dry and his name comes out sounding chapped and trembling and less like the reprimand she’d intended it to be - 

“Byleth,” he says, and she _hates_ how he’s still in control of his own voice, and that he’s pitched it low and almost _sultry_ and she’s quite certain that she’s never heard her name sounding like this before. “What did Solon call you, when we avenged your father’s death?”

This is unfair. He keeps asking _her_ questions, while never answering any of the questions _she_ has for _him_.

“Fell star,” she says in a whisper, mostly because she’s afraid to raise her voice any louder. Because she doesn’t want to hear her voice shake like that again. Because she is a skilled fighter, the master of her own body; but right now - right now she can't _trust_ it, because it's not even letting her _breathe_ properly, making her take all these stupid _shallow breaths_ for air, and she can't let Claude _see_ this. He can't _know_.

“Fell star,” he confirms. And his eyes - Byleth hates herself even more for this, but they totally _arrest_ her, and she can’t help but think them enigmatic in the way that they dance. “I like you the same way I like stars. And a little more.”

“More?” she echoes - and she thinks, _let this be real - don’t let this be a dream_ -

She can't breathe at all now.

“I like you better than all those other stars, still set against the sky,” he says - and that breath she's been holding, it lets out all at once. _He likes me better. He likes_ me _better_.

The tension in her body relaxes and she _feels_ herself smiling, though she hadn't thought to smile. _He likes me better._ Because Claude's answered a wish that she hadn't the strength to articulate, not even in the privacy of her own mind. And now it's here, realized, all at once - and she's wholly unprepared, but she wants to say _something_ back. Something, anything.

But she’s the Ashen Demon, and _she doesn’t do romantic_ , and what is she supposed to say?

“I like you better than knowing which way is north,” she tries.

And then she _winces_ , because for the goddess’ sake, _how terrible was that line_ -

But Claude laughs, and it touches his eyes - and when he pulls her in and lowers his lips to capture hers, and when she weaves her hands around his back and along his neck, and when she feels _his_ pulse beneath her fingertips and it’s fast and fleeting and running wild -

She realizes that maybe it _wasn’t_ teasing all this time. Maybe they _had_ been flirting, and she just hadn’t noticed. Maybe what she has is more than a passing fancy.

And maybe there’s something else to their relationship, where he tells her that she’s beautiful and inspirational in the most round-about way that makes her want to use him for target practice until they’re both breathless and panting. And she tells him that he gives her direction in an awkward, stilted way that makes her cheeks flame and makes _him_ laugh. 

They train together. They inspect battle maps together. Occasionally, they take meals together. And for the next few nights, she plans to see it through that _neither_ of them should get any rest beneath the stars; and that she’ll be the only dream he’ll dream in the evening, and similarly will she dream of him.

**Author's Note:**

> Subscribe if you'd like! I'm not sure how many of the days I'll be participating in, but I'll most likely be pushing the oneshot updates to this story as I go.
> 
> For those of you following Tea is for Teacher, I hope this at least appeases some of the stupid pining that _that_ Byleth is committed to wearing as a chain.
> 
> Thank you for reading!! Drop a comment and I'll love you forever <3


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